Work Your Dream

I have had an extremely hard time writing lately. This is going to be rambling rose here as I try to work through all of this. I have people tell me how strong I am and I am especially when it comes to dealing with all the health issues. But lately, I have been a gardenia. And for those that do not know what that means, a gardenia is a delicate flower and if you touch it, it bruises. I can handle most anything anymore but what has made my heart heavy is all the hate, anger, violence that we see on the media, in politics, in the country here and everywhere. It is bad enough we are warring with other countries but we have warred within ourselves here in our own country. And that to me is beyond sad for a country divided will fall. So, get your coffee or coke, pull up a chair and listen to me ramble here.

I have written some in the past like on the shooting in Orlando and other places and the shootings the past few days have really saddened my heart. Why, oh why can people not just show compassion and love. There are parents and family members who lost their loved ones that are crying and grieving. Are we incapable of feeling compassion for that? No matter the reason the killings are a tragedy that has affected many, and I cautioned many against making early judgments about what happened in those two shootings for one reason. That reason was that when you get so angry that you start making statements that include with anger the words “All”, “Every”, and “Never”, you are fueling your anger and sparking this kind of anger in others. Nothing is “all”. All cops are not bad. All Blacks are not thugs. All whites are not racist. See my point here? Anger can be a good thing. It is what you do with that anger that matters. Dallas is a good example of that with 5 dead White policemen.

I am going to delve into something laying on my heart and I ask a couple of things of everyone who chooses to comment on here. The first is please be respectful. We do not all have to agree but we can all be respectful. I do have and have always had my comments on “approval” basis to keep ugliness off as I wanted my blog to be a place where you could discuss without fear of being attacked. So, please no hate, no name calling, no pulling politics in, and no racism or your comment will not be approved. I do not mind disagreeing with me just no hate. Thanks.

First let me say that I can understand the anger that is being felt right now by the deaths…unnecessary deaths of two Black men. I think besides the deaths, the part that makes me the angriest is that I feel like the media fuels this anger and it then creates more things like the violent protests, destruction and more deaths. Gone are the days where the media was the watch dog and were not biased in their reporting. There was no emotionalism like there is today and emotionalism is solely to sell the stories. With what the media has posted, it has fueled the Black community and many whites even more. When there is injustice, we need people who are willing to work for solutions not create more chaos. And I feel my Black friend’s pain and the pain of the Black Community. We are more racially divided than we have been in years and that is sad.

Now, I know because I have had some say it to me in the past, that Blacks need to stop saying they need an apology for slavery and oppression because no one today was even alive during that time. And that is true. But you know what? How hard is it to say “I am so sorry that your ancestors were brought over here as slaves and mistreated and abused and their lives stolen.” We do not have to have been alive when slavery happened to be sorry that it ever happened. I certainly am sorry it ever happened especially from a country of people who came here for freedom and then they turn around and bring slaves over and they do things like push the Native Americans onto reservations, and try to take their identity by forcing them to never speak their native tongue (and I am talking both Blacks and Native Americans here), refused to let them use their native names and gave them new names….white names and mistreated many people along the way.

I grew up during segregation and integration times. I remember the police and how people treated them. I remember the signs “no colored allowed” and I remember the white and black water fountains. I remember the first Black child that was made to come to our school when integration started and how people treated her. And all I could think was how scared she must be. And there was always this part of me that could not understand what all the ugliness was about. If you cut a Black person and a White person they both bleed red. We are all humans who just happen to have different colored skin.

And the past couple of years I have felt like I was back in that time when I see all the hate and anger on both sides and see people fighting over flags, statues and the like. And the name calling is horrific and it is not limited to just racial issues. It is in politics, in the news comments, and just about everywhere else you look. Where has respect gone? Where has compassion gone? Where has love gone?

Now, I do believe that you do not hide history. Hiding history does not remove the blaring stain. We need to learn from history. We can not pretend that certain things never happened. We need to learn how to do better from the past. What is that old saying “Hind sight is 20/20″ and it is. We should be able to look back at how things have gone and see where we as a country went wrong. I can remember thinking about people one day as I was reading on slavery and on the Native Americans and other races that struggled here…”Who the hell did we think we were?” People come here for freedom and look what happens.

See, I can not tell you how it feels to be Black, to have to worry every time you go out if you are going to be stopped, to wonder every time you hear of a shooting was it one of your family. I can tell you how it feels to be disabled and be discriminated against and mistreated for that has been my life.

So, where do we go from here? We can not fix anything until we admit there is a problem and most people refuse to do that. Things are said like go back to where you came from to people born and raised here who are just as much American as I am. We have to learn to first hold the anger and not let it lead us into things that are violent. We have to learn to listen to each other and to quit hating. Hatred, racism, anger…those are things we are not born with. We are taught them. Love is also something that is taught and yet I see more hatred, racism, anger taught to our young kids than love, compassion and understanding. I had older family members that used racist terms and I worked hard to not teach that to my sons but to teach them acceptance and compassion for others.And I am proud of both of my sons. They treat everyone with respect and caring.

We have to turn the tide. We need to find ways to work for solutions. Now, what I am about to say may make some mad but I believe survivors look for solutions and those that want to remain a victim only talk about the problems. The fact that there was slavery in this country or anywhere is to me a dark spot on our history. It is a fact of history. But we can not use slavery as an excuse to do wrong, to hate, to do violence, to destroy property, etc. We have to learn how to express the anger in a better way that works towards figuring out what is needed to make things better. And that being a survivor…working for a solution.

In some ways things are much better with racial tensions. I mean for the first time we have a Black president and Blacks in positions such as senators/congress, judges, and the DOJ. So some things have improved. So what else needs to be done to improve racial tensions? I agree that better training, better accountability, cameras on all law enforcement, better mental evaluation needs to be done. But in a climate where “hate the cops”, “the cops are ALL bad”, and other things are being taught, the tension increases between cops and Blacks. And then we have people who do not respond properly to cops, are disrespectful and fight back and it ends up a struggle and someone gets hurt. How do we fix this?

I have two videos I want you all to watch. The first is a video of Jarrett Maupin, who is “a vocal critic of police during recent protests and he went through force training with local authorities.” to see what being a cop was like. He said he had a totally different perspective after doing that because he saw how you could end up shooting someone because things happen in a split second. That is not to say all police shootings are justified. It is just another perspective on the other side of the coin.

And the last video is a Black cop in Dallas as he expresses how he feels about the officers shot. He makes one statement that I love and that is “”I refuse to see hate live while love dies” We have to find a way to stop the epidemic of hate and turn it into something productive that changes the way things are.

Sorry folks, the youtuber who posted this video removed it, so here is a link to the video of this awesome cop and what he had to say.

About danLrene

And now I can add author to that list for my first book has been published and is on Amazon for sale now. Here is the link: My First Book Published

If you want it real….read my blog. If you want all fou fou and fluffy sweet..it is not here. 🙂

danLrene is a quirky, funny, eclectic, happy, compassionate, caring, hippy, country girl and most of all a God-loving person who just also happens to be a writer, a poet, a photographer, an artist, the queen of bed dancing, hairbrush singer extraordinaire, once a cook..now the taste tester, once a gardener and now a gardening adviser and the keeper of danLrene older than dirt wisdom.

My goal is to have people see me and think “I want what she has that makes her so happy”. Happiness is a choice..a daily choice. We are either survivors or we are victims. I am a survivor. Survivors focus on the solutions and ways to have a better life while victims are still talking about all the problems.

I will not lie and tell you life is all roses because it is not. Some days I can not move and lay on this bed in agony and some days I am able to sit in my power chair for a little while. But no matter what kind of day, I look for something good to focus on whether it is my dreams, my daisy, my son who is so good at taking care of me, my other son and DIL and my Sweetpea, my family, my friends on line…no matter what..there is always something good to find in life if you look hard enough. Just remember it is how you think that determines what life is like.

“If you think you can or you think you can not, you will be right.”

I will be 67 this May of 2016. Life has been a journey of health issues since before I was 31 . I have a warrior attitude. Being a warrior does not mean you always win. It means you never quit trying. Life is what you make it and I choose to make mine as happy as possible no matter where I am in life.

I am blessed in that my oldest son is my caretaker and a great one at that. He has given up much to take care of me. He is an awesome caretaker and is always looking for ways to make life easier for me. I truly am thankful for his care. He is writing a book talking about “My Mother’s Keeper”..and I think it is going to be wonderful for so many are having to take care of their parents today.

My name is not chronic illness or disability. Can you really see me or do you see my health? I hope you see me and my spirit.

Our baby Daisy. Daisy came to us from a dear friend after our Jack, as so many of you called “Wonder Dog” because of his blue cape, walked on to the next world. And Daisy is such a joy and makes us smile and laugh.

Son and Daisy

My one room world from my hospital bed-it is filled with warmth and love from so many. Son designed my “Command Central” as he calls it. It is a long narrow table by my bed with a little flip down desk where I can sit on the edge of the bed and eat or I can sit up and type if I want to but I am “tummy typer supreme” as son calls it and many wonder how I type laying down like I do. Necessity is the mother of invention. My room looks into the kitchen where I can see son puttering around cooking as he is master of the kitchen now. 🙂

I still dream of going back to Italy, of us having one of those shuttle buses with a lift for my chair that son can convert into a motor home for us to make it easier when I have to go to Denver for surgeries and stuff. I still dream of learning how to tap dance…yes even on these crutches or laying on my hospital bed, just so I can say I did. All I need are a pair of size 11 tap shoes and a board at the foot of my bed. I dream of many things.

image from facebookemoticons123.blogspot.com

Ever since I was a little girl, I was told I was a dreamer. I can remember report cards with “day dreams” written on it. I think dreams are what keep us going. Without dreams…we have no hope. I dream of many things and I dream for many of you.

Follow Your Dreams, The Siren Called Out To Me

As I closed my eyes and fell deep into lovely sleep. The dream siren called me with a promise to keep

I closed my eyes and looked deep in my soul I could feel the wind blowing…it was so very cold

My dreams I had carried through year after year They will never come true was my biggest fear

Wandering up one lane and down another Remembering my dream since I became a mother

Land, open land and a place to be free A small house to live in with a big evergreen tree

We mounted the buckboard with all we owned inside And started over the mountain on this crazy dream ride

We felt like pioneers racing to the finish line for land And the whole time we knew -The Lord had our hand

So do not be afraid to dream your dreams and try Life is too short…open your wings up and fly

Dream I say and work the dream hard as you can For it will be the best race that you ever ran.

We all have dreams of what we want out of life. I remember Laverne on Laverne and Shirley saying her dream was to have a purple cashmere sweater. Well, our dream is to own land in the country and have a simple life style unencumbered by so much of what is in the world today. We have accomplished that dream in that we live on the outskirts of small town America in a much smaller and compact house but it has all we need: a cottage that visitors say they love because it is so serene here.

I love to write and have written for years. And hopefully will continue to write for many more years. This blog is about our journey getting here, our life after we reached the promised land and different middle of the night ramblings, posts to inspire others to keep fighting and keep living. Dreams are like cooking…we might get our grandparents old recipes, but we tend to alter them to suit ourselves. But, dream we must…for as long as we have hope in life…we have dreams. And even plain ole everyday people get dreams that come true. 🙂

I hope you enjoy and will subscribe and share my journey. Come join us at the foothills of the mountains where we have found a life of simplicity and serenity, in spite of all the health trials of one disabled woman and the courage of a son that chose to take care of her.